During a segment of an interview this week on the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” Republican presidential contender Donald Trump responded to allegations in the federal indictment against him that he showed a confidential document to other people by stating that there was no such document and that “these were newspaper stories, magazine stories, and articles.” While he was out of office, he was unable to declassify anything, but he claimed that “there was nothing to declassify.”
Trump said, starting at 6:10 in his pertinent remarks. “It wasn’t a piece of paper. I was surrounded by paper. I had copies of news stories. I had magazine copies.”
“The reason I couldn’t declassify it at this point,” he said, “was that I wasn’t the president. I was always really front about that. I am unable to declassify when I am not the president. That, however, wasn’t a paper. Bret, no document was present. That was a significant collection of papers and other materials about Iran and other topics. And it may or might not have been supported. That, however, was not a document. I didn’t actually have a document. Nothing needed to be declassified. These were articles, magazine pieces, and newspaper reports.”
He had earlier in the interview claimed that “to my knowledge,” he had no military preparations against Iran. “However, everything had been declassified.”